It is generally taken for granted that human behavior distributes along the lines of a bell-shaped, normal curve. This idea underpins much educational theory, research, and practice. There is, however, a considerable body of research demonstrating that the normal curve grossly misrepresents the human experience. Yet the acceptance of the normal curve continues to be used to pathologize children and adults with disabilities by positioning them as abnormal. Collectively, the contributors to this volume critique the ideology of the normal curve. Some explicitly challenge the assumptions that underpin the normal curve. Others indirectly critique notions of normality by examining the impact of normal curve thinking on educational policies and practices. Many contributors go beyond critiquing the normal curve to propose alternative ways to imagine human differences. All contributors agree that the hegemony of the normal curve has had a devastating effect on those presumed to live on the boundaries of normal.
- 273 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
The Myth of the Normal Curve
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Table of contents
- CONTENTS
- 1 Introduction: Living on the Boundaries of Normal - Curt Dudley-Marling & Alex Gurn 1
- 2 Troubling the Foundations of Special Education: Examining the Myth of the Normal Curve - Curt Dudley-Marling & Alex Gurn 9
- 3 Educational Researchers and the Making of Normal People - Deborah Gallagher 25
- 4 Decentralizations and Redistributions: A Complex Reading of Normality - Brent Davis & Dennis Sumara 39
- 5 Situating Labeling within an Ideological Framework - Donaldo Macedo & Teresa Sordé Martà 53
- 6 Evolutionary Anxiety, Monstrosity, and the Birth of Normality - Steven A. Gelb 71
- 7 âRequires Medication to Progress Academicallyâ: The Discursive Pathways of ADHD - Rebecca Rogers & Michael Mancini 87
- 8 Assessment and the Policing of the Norm - Eileen W. Ball & Beth Harry 105
- 9 Minerâs Canaries and Boiling Frogs: Fiction and Facts about Normalcy in Educational and Reading Assessment - Arlette Ingram Willis 123
- 10 A Dialogue Weâve Yet to Have: Race and Disability Studies - Beth Ferri 139
- 11 Labeling and Treating Linguistic Minority Students with Disabilities as Deficient and Outside the Normal Curve: A Pedagogy of Exclusion - Felicity A. Crawford & Lilia I. Bartolomé 151
- 12 Sex Education and Young Adults with Intellectual Disabilities: Crisis Response, Sexual Diversity, and Pleasure - Michael Gill 171
- 13 The Sirens of Normative Mythology: Mother Narratives of Engagement and Resistance - Jan Valle & Susan Gabel 187
- 14 Living on the Edge of the Normal Curve: âItâs Like a Smack in the Headâ - Bernadette Macartney 205
- 15 Practitioner Research as Resistance to the âNormal Curveâ - Gerald Campano & Rob Simon 221
- 16 Conclusion: Re/visioning the Ideological Imagination in (Special) Education - Alex Gurn 241
- List of Contributors 257
- Index 259
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